HERE’S A nugget of wisdom from Jordan Peterson, a psychologist in the U.S. who is getting a great following from young Americans for his sensible rules of life, that he wrote in his best-selling book, “12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” One of his rules is to stop comparing yourself with others but compare yourself only with yourself. Especially with your old self or who you were yesterday so that you can monitor your progress and not the progress of others.
You and I have an innate need to compare ourselves to
other people. If you notice that you're more skilled and successful than others
around you, your brain will release a hormone called serotonin. When you have
serotonin in your blood, you feel confident and in control of your life. But
the instant your mind notices someone who threatens your status in society and
makes you look incompetent; your brain restricts serotonin.
You start doubting yourself and feel a low sense of self‐worth. Now that we are connected to billions of people
online, it doesn't take long for our brain to notice ways in which we compare
unfavorably to other people. You think you're a good guitar player? There are
dozens of exceptional guitar players on YouTube that will make you look
completely amateur...You're proud of graduating from that local college with a
business degree? Your friend just posted a photo on Facebook of him graduating
from a prestigious university with an MBA.
When you're exposed to so many people that are better than
you, and the gap between you and someone else is huge, you're more inclined to
lose hope, stop taking action, and let your life slip into chaos. The best way
to prevent this from happening is to stop comparing yourself to who someone
else is today and start comparing yourself to who you were yesterday.
The task of comparing yourself with yourself is called
self-improvement monitoring. This self-improvement monitoring should be
done on a daily basis so as to make corrections immediately before a bad
practice in us escalates and becomes a vice. This self-monitoring is
actually an old traditional spiritual practice in the Church called examination
of conscience. In examining ourselves, (usually done at the end of the
day) we simply ask ourselves, “What have I done good today? What have I
done wrong? How can I do better?” It can be in the area of using
our time: did I waste it on senseless things or was I productive with my day
today? Or dealings with others: did I lose my temper or became
irritated with someone? Or was I able to practice patience and is making progress
on it.
Of course, it goes without saying that we have to be
truthful with ourselves in doing the self-examination otherwise it would be an
exercise in futility. Until you face the truth, any improvement you make on who
you were yesterday will be meaningless. Instead of moving forward, you'll just
be moving sideways. To make forward progress you need to acknowledge what
truth you're avoiding and what uncomfortable conversations you need to have
with yourself and others. We need to include others because there are
areas in our behavior that we could not see are faulty unless others
point it out to us.
If you are faithful to your daily self-examination coupled
with the constant improvement mindset, you can look back to who you were a year
ago or two years ago and feel more confident and have less self-doubt knowing
you are growing. John Maxwell says, “Growth is essential to
happiness.” If we think that we are growing even in just one area in
life, say, having learned a new skill of playing the guitar, we feel satisfied.
And more satisfaction awaits when we try to grow in the many other aspects of
our life. (ECC)
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